Eddie Howe has reinvented Joelinton and Newcastle are thriving
From ‘wild chicken’ to a Magpie that’s flying high, how Eddie Howe has reinvented Joelinton into Newcastle’s all-action midfield star in the race to secure Champions League football
- Newcastle’s rise to the Premier League top four has been aided by Joeltinton
- The Brazilian has been transformed since Eddie Howe took over as manager
- Joelinton was on target in the Magpies 6-1 win over Tottenham on Sunday
When Sean Longstaff said that Joelinton was the best player in training and first picked for practice games because it guaranteed victory, it felt like an act of kindness towards an under-fire team-mate.
Whatever trees the Brazilian was pulling up behind closed doors, he was tripping over them in public. You even doubted the veracity of Longstaff’s claims. Turns out he was telling the truth.
Less than two years on and Joelinton is the Newcastle player, perhaps more than any other, who guarantees victory, and not just during an in-house kickabout.
The word ‘awesome’ is often misused in footballing parlance. But check its Oxford definition – arousing or inspiring awe; that fills someone with reverential fear, wonder, or respect – and you identify the emotions stirred when watching Joelinton. In his case, awesome is entirely apt.
He was once compared to a ‘wild chicken’ by his manager at Rapid Vienna, where he spent two seasons on loan from 2016. His opponents resemble the chickens these days. On Sunday, during the 6-1 dismantling of Tottenham, he had a full coop of them running scared.
Joelinton has been one of Newcastle’s best players this season as they chase a top four place
The Brazilian was on target as Newcastle thrashed Tottenham at St James’ Park on Sunday
In a competitive field, he was named man of the match by Mail Sport and the Premier League. Supporters and observers even claimed it was his best performance for Newcastle.
For whereas once that bar was as low as the club’s pre-takeover league position, Joelinton and the team have elevated their standards in tandem. He was supposed to fall away during the ascent, a £40million club-record flop. Today, he is the poster boy for the transformation.
Eddie Howe deserves enormous credit for that, but not as much as the player himself.
Even during a debut season in 2019 that brought just two league goals – a stat aggravated by him wearing the fabled No 9 – he did not miss a single game.
He later hired his own fitness coach and analyst – somewhat damning on the previous management regime – such was his determination to prove his worth. Still, though, he played as if wearing a money belt containing all those pound coins – the price-tag continued to weigh heavy.
But then came his moment of liberation, and it happened as much by accident as design.
After nine minutes of Howe’s first game in the dugout at St James’ Park against Norwich in November of 2021, defender Ciaran Clark was sent off.
Joelinton, for the first time, was moved into midfield. Mail Sport compared him to Patrick Vieira that night, as much in a light-hearted nod to a powerful display that none of us had thought possible.
But as the weeks went on, it was no laughing matter. Newcastle, for more than two years, had not recognised the strength – literally and figuratively – of the player who had cost more than any other in their history. The misuse of a seed is the murder of fruits, and Joelinton had not been allowed to grow.
Joelinton’s form is a far cry from the struggles he had when he first signed for the Magpies
Eddie Howe should take credit for the transformation of Joelinton’s form at Newcastle
Howe, realising his good fortune and with the sun shining on him, duly harvested a talent whose abilities are unique.
We mentioned Vieira, but Yaya Toure is another who comes to mind, if only because he has now added goals – seven this season – to his superior physicality. Of late, this has come from the left of a front three, as well as in midfield.
There is an argument to say that, even if reverted to striker, he would be unrecognisable from the pre-Howe version of himself.
No matter where he is on the park right now, Joelinton is Newcastle’s best player. It is not just on the training ground where he is first picked.
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